Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times s72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 has been invoked in each year since it gained Royal assent.

Information held centrally by the Ministry of Justice on the Court Proceedings Database does not include the circumstances behind each case beyond the definition of the offence provided in statute. Although we can provide information on how many of each of the offences covered by section 72 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 were proceeded against at court overall, we do not have a central record of how many of those offences were alleged to have taken place outside of the UK. This information could only be obtained from the individual court files at disproportionate cost.